Buried Deep & Covered With A Perfect Shell
by truglasgowgal
Summary: They say the dead tell no tales; but his family is still the story of his life and he can't see how that will ever change.


This show is my current addiction, and this is my first attempt at writing anything in this fandom, so let's hope it doesn't completely bomb haha

Hope you enjoy…

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**Title:** Buried Deep & Covered With A Perfect Shell  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything. Shame really.  
Title from the Dashboard Confessional song, 'The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most'.  
**A/N:** I intended this to be a direct continuation of episode 9, but it could really be taken at any point. SPOILERS for episode 9 though ;)  
**Summary:** They say the dead tell no tales; but his family is still the story of his life and he can't see how that will ever change.

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"_There is love in your body but you can't get it out  
It gets stuck in your head, won't come out of your mouth  
Sticks to your tongue and shows on your face  
That the sweetest of words have the bitterest taste.__"  
_**_'Hardest of Hearts', Florence + the Machine_**

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He stands under the shower and lets the water rush over him.

The steam has settled all around, continues to rise, the air having not quite reached saturation yet. He thinks that might be telling of the temperature of the jet stream that plows into him; that it's hot, most likely scalding.

His skin is red, not flushed, but angry. He thinks that might be telling of what he's become. He can't even feel it as it burns its way through his outer layer.

He wonders if he stands there long enough, will it penetrate?

Can anything?

.

He can list rules and guidelines of the most obscure origins, he can spout lyrics and poems and quote the Bible to Shakespeare and back again. Pick a language for him to do it in, he'll probably be able to speak like a native; and he can problem-solve, analyze and do algorithms with the best those fields have to offer.

Sometimes he forgets his old life; it just gets overthrown by the new, by the current; but more often than not they intertwine, cause havoc with his insides.

It's nursery rhymes that he excels at. He can recite them word for word, name each and every character, alter his voice at just the right time and for just the right moment. He used to get so engrossed in the storytelling he wonders if that's what keeps it ingrained within him; or if it's because it's the only time he can see his wife smiling at him, see the pride shining clearly in her eyes, feel the warmth of his daughter as she rests her head on his chest, feel the tug of her tiny fingers wrapped around his.

He'll never forget the fable of that fated egg though; the sound of his little girl asking him why Humpty Dumpty was sitting so high up on that wall in the first place? Why wasn't he more careful? Why couldn't they save him?

He knows now; he's cracked, shattered, he can't go back to what he was.

And even if he uses tape and patches and glue and everything and anything he can find to stitch himself back up, it won't matter. Even if he fills the gap with murderous thoughts and desires based on revenge and the hope that one day he will put a bullet between the eyes of the man responsible and then empty a clip into his chest, though there can't possibly be a heart that beats there after what he did; it won't matter. He won't be the same.

_All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again._

And if everyone in the world knows His Majesty's finest couldn't even put a measly egg back together; what chance does he have?

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He doesn't carry any photos of them; doesn't display their images in stunning framework in a proud declaration, though he's honored to call them his.

He doesn't sleep with his daughter's favorite teddy every night; it was in the car with her; it went up in flames like everything else in his life that day.

He doesn't spray his wife's perfume on the pillow next to him; they say the sense of smell is a powerful thing; it still has the ability to reduce him to his knees.

He doesn't have any tattoos to commemorate what they meant to him, to testify that they touched his life in such a profound and unforgettable way, to show the world that he had something to live for once.

His memories are enough; they are what keep him awake in the dead of night, what drive him every second of the day.

Besides, he doesn't think anything could quite compare to the scars they've left plastered across his heart.

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His life used to be one big fairytale. Stories of princes and princesses, of castles in the sky and horse-drawn carriages, magic and mystery at every turn, he lived his greatest fantasy out there in the real word.

Now he lives perpetually in the underground; he partakes in the daring adventures, on occasion he even saves a damsel in distress; but afterwards he always retreats back into the darkness.

The dragons are embodied in the roar of engines, the fire they breathe travels through the air by the crackling of ammunition; the clatter of armor that tinny sound of bullets piercing metal. Swords have become daggers, horses upgraded to reinforced vehicles, and where the villain used to be defeated in a show of utmost bravery, now the battles are long and bloody and sometimes he doubts they even have a purpose that's worth all the trouble.

He fights to the death, has even come close to acting out his part as the fallen soldier; but he's never quite crossed over to the other side. He wonders if it's in the act of dying itself, if that's been the main hindrance all along; his last wish can't be granted, and he'd have no one to plead with anyway.

He tells himself he's still on the side of the good, but really he knows the lines blurred long ago; territories and loyalties so divided it's a wonder any of them make it out alive.

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He looks in the mirror and hates the face that is reflected back at him.

The hard line of his mouth is deep set, the stubble that runs across his jaw merging with the darkness that surrounds him to make his face look even thinner, even more bone-tight. Hollow markers have gauged out their places so his cheekbones stick out further and his eyes just look more sunken. Soon his skin will fuse completely against the structure of his skull and he'll be like a living skeleton.

He hasn't eaten or slept in over twenty-four hours; he looks like he's been choked on and spit out. He's been hovering in a limbo between the various stages of consciousness; an exhausting episode in a valley of dizzying thoughts and nightmares, and it shows.

He thinks he's aged since he last looked; his hair a matted pile of dirty shrapnel, fingers anchored tight to a sink that's as cold as the bullets that narrowly missed piercing his heart mere hours prior.

And yet, he hasn't looked this alive in so long.

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In the back of his mind, he hears his daughter's voice singsong:

_Once upon a time…_

It's a constant reminder; he won't ever forget, he can't.

They haunt him still.

There will be no happily ever after.

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"_Floating neither up or down I wonder when I hit the ground_  
_Will the earth beneath my body shake_  
_And cast your sleeping hearts awake?_  
_Could it tremble stars from moonlit skies?_  
_Could it drag a tear from your cold eyes?_  
_I live on the right side I sleep on the left  
That's why everything's got to be love or death."_  
_**'Death', White Lies**_

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The End.

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So, apparently I write angst whatever the mood – go figure.  
Hope you liked it. Please let me know what you thought – it means a lot :)  
Steph  
xxx


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